With a tied vote broken by the mayor, the 2024-25 budget for Garland has been approved.
Thursday night, the Garland Board of Commissioners met to discuss the fiscal plan again after it was decided during Monday night’s public hearing that board members needed more time to look over the budget before they could approve it. The main issue — the tax rate.
After a revaluation done by the county, a revenue neutral tax rate for the town of Garland would be 44 cents per $100 valuation. The proposed budget ordinance had a tax rate over 20 cents higher than that, which residents of the town were against.
Instead, a new budget ordinance written up by Commissioner Jo Strickland was passed, which brought the tax rate down to 48 cents per $100 of valuation.
“I have gotten the tax rate for the citizens of Garland down to $0.48,” she announced at the meeting. “It took some budget cuts. It did not take nearly as much as I would have anticipated.”
By request of the board, Commissioner Strickland went through the major cuts she had made to balance out the fiscal plan. The first cut brought up was nixing the salaries of the commissioners and the mayor.
“The first thing that you’ll notice is in the government body expense; my recommendation is that we cut the commissioners’ salaries in half, as well as the mayor’s,” she stated.
Mayor Pro-Tem Timothy Blackburn brought up that the budget for the salaries could be cut down to even $100 a month, which would total $7,200 for the entire year.
“I say we drop it down to $100 for everybody,” he said after Commissioner Strickland was finished speaking.
This sentiment was shared by various members of the board.
The next cut that was made in the budget was for public buildings. Commissioner Strickland brought the total down by $820.
“I think we can take a cut [with public buildings]. I don’t know of anybody that is on the committee that has a capital outlay, anything that is big for buildings other than repair of some things that were neglected for years. So, I feel like that is one area that is just a little bit high, and that it can be cut,” she explained.
Another cut was made to parks and recreation. Commissioner Strickland stated that this cut would bring the total to $13,500. She said this cut was because the town had the opportunities for grants that would pay lots of money for the majority of what they needed, and if something was broken previously and it hadn’t been fixed by now, it could wait another year.
“I would like to see parks and rec go down to $13,350. The reason for bringing that figure out is we’ve got the grant sitting out here to do a major amount of improvements for parks and rec,” Commissioner Strickland said to explain her reasoning for the cut. “And if you have a specific item that you’re looking at, whatever it is, given where our economy sits right now, it’s waited this many years, what’s the problem with waiting one more until we see where this grants going and utilize that grant to the best of our ability?”
The cemetery budget was also brought down to $14,500 instead of the $29,000 proposed. Commissioner Strickland said this was because the town could find new ways to get what was needed done.
“I think there’s other ways to do some of the projects that you had in mind. I think we’re a little over. The amount that was set aside was too much, and I feel like that we can cut that back and treat those ants in a different way,” she said.
This cut was questioned by Mayor Pro-Tem Blackburn who asked who would be able to spray for the fire ants since no one had an insecticide license. It was decided that they would check the state law to see if an insecticide license was needed to spray the cemetery since it would not be for household use.
Lastly, Commissioner Strickland brought up the last big cut which was to the fire department. Her reasoning for bringing the total to $15,000 instead of the proposed $23,000 was because of the money the county was giving the department in its budget, which was well over $100,000.
“It’s not that I’m against the fire department,” Commissioner Strickland was quick to say. “But the fire department has a budget that has been adopted by the county. The county has voted on their budget now, and the fire department in Garland is receiving $170,600. To me, with that much money, I don’t see that we need to continue to burden our citizens when we can scale down a little bit, given they had a significant increase.”
Commissioner Strickland insisted that the tax rate needed to come down and these cuts needed to happen for the residents because it was not “ethically okay” for her to recommend a tax rate that was higher than $0.48.
“I feel like, honestly, that the tax rate in this town should have been decreased a long time ago. I feel like we had expenditures, we had problems in the past that put us in a financial bind, but I think those have resolved somewhat, and I feel like the only thing that is right for taxpayers of this town is to reduce the rate given the increase in the property values,” she added.
Commissioner Ralph Smith Jr. had similar views.
“I think it’s the right thing to do,” he said about lowering the tax rates. “And I think the other proposals were absurd, and that’s all I’ve got to say.”
Mayor Austin Brown said by accepting this plan, Garland would be more “in-line” with the other towns in the county when it comes to tax rates.
“Salemburg’s tax rate is $0.30, Roseboro’s is $0.46, Turkey’s is $0.32, Autryville’s is $0.46. We’re coming a lot more in line with everybody else,” Mayor Brown said.
He added that it “is not financially responsible to leave it at $0.72,” and that having a lower tax rate could also attract more businesses to the town.
Before the vote, Mayor Pro-Tem Blackburn brought up that $10,000 was added to the safety budget in this new proposal.
“So we’re going to add 10 to the Sheriff’s Department and we’re going to cut the rest of these?” he asked.
“Correct,” Strickland confirmed.
“So why can’t we leave the Sheriff’s Department where it was at $45,000?”
Commissioner Strickland explained that the first year they paid to have the Sheriff’s Department cover the town it was $55,000 — which was based on hours that was needed and how much to pay them. Then the next year, the budget was cut by $10,000, which then cut down the hours they would come to Garland. This year, she brought the total back up to $55,000 to bring the hours back to where they started.
After a thorough read through of the budget and explanations by Commissioner Strickland, a motion was made, and the approval of this new budget was brought to a vote. Commissioner Strickland and Commissioner Smith voted for the new proposed budget while Mayor Pro-Tem Blackburn and Commissioner Lee Carberry voted against the budget. Mayor Brown broke the tie by voting for the budget.
Commissioner Anthony Norris was absent from the meeting.
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